


And the Sun Glares Back

by lesetoiles



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I just really wanted Sasunaru I'm sorry, Light Angst, M/M, Mending Bonds, Post-Chapter 699 (Naruto), Pre-Chapter 700 (Naruto), Romance, SasuNaru - Freeform, Sasuke loves his sunshine but it takes him a bit to realize it, Somewhat anti-ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 17:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12173130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesetoiles/pseuds/lesetoiles
Summary: Sasuke doesn’t fall in love more so as he runs right past it, pauses, and tries to retrace his steps.





	And the Sun Glares Back

**Author's Note:**

> *Listens to I Bet My Life for the rest of eternity while crying*

The sun, Sasuke learns early on, is too goddamn bright.

            He is Uchiha pale, fair moonlight skin like his mother. She slathers him with sunscreen and tells him to bring an umbrella. Ninjas don’t need parasols, he pouts. Itachi teaches him a simple jutsu instead.

            His shadow crawls along the grassy field. He isn’t sure exactly where he is, but he thinks he’s about a week away from Konoha. He never did learn any other way to measure distance.

He peeks between pores of billowing canopies and lets dappled light strike his cheeks. He imagines it is like lightning and he sees his brother dying in its power.

Yes, he glares, too goddamn bright.

\--

Sasuke doesn’t know exactly when he realizes there is Something There.

            He wakes suddenly, choked by consciousness, Sharingan just under the surface of burning eyes. His senses overload and he feels _everything._ Bird song pulses his eardrums. Dusk sears his retinas. Scratchy cotton prickles up his arms and oh no his _arm—_

            His heart monitor spikes suddenly and panic detonates in his chest. Konoha is suffocation he has to leave _he has to go_. A scream struggles around clenched chords—

“Sasuke.”

            He whips his head to his roommate. Both of Naruto’s eyes are nearly swollen shut and a red stripe sneaks from under his white forehead binds. But his cerulean gaze is unwavering, a swirling storm of concern and confusion. He clutches one hand on his blankets as if he were going to throw them off at a moment’s notice. One hand, Sasuke notices immediately and his memories flicker to the fight that landed them here. Of conversations under dying sunlight.

            It calms him for some reason and his heart rates returns to normal. He flops back on the bed and winces at the ache radiating from his stump.

“Hey teme,” Naruto husks, cutting uncertainty with humor, “Take it easy for once.”

“Yeah.” He lets out a long-suffering sigh way too old for someone his age and drifts off to Naruto’s rough chuckles.

\--

(Of course, he is lying when he says he doesn’t remember. He is an Uchiha. He is accustomed to lying.

Moonlight spills through the open window and seeks Naruto’s form like a beacon. His hair is a dulled bronze, an exhausted flame. Shadows clench and hook around the angles of his body. The ones on his cheeks look suspiciously like tears. The universe tilts on its axis and Sasuke realizes, with such startling clarity that it knocks the breath out of him, that he would rather die than see the dobe cry ever again.

He lets the ache gnaw behind his ribs and watches him sleep until dawn.)

\--

            They bind him and seal his eyes and send him away to an undisclosed location. He is near water. It lulls him to sleep somedays and awakens him others. Once he dreams he almost drowns and someone pulls him out the last second.

            They feed him only the bare minimum and the water is stagnant and bitter. Conditions the Rokudaime would not have allowed. Or maybe he signed off on it. Doesn’t matter—Sasuke believes he deserves it either way.

            They allow him one visitor and it’s worse than torture. Naruto speaks of inanities each visit, outlining his daily schedule of studies, the properties of a good ramen, the lives of the ninja in their graduation year. While annoying, this is not Sasuke’s main problem. What he despises is this complacency. This _acceptance_ for a system that has destroyed them both. Does he even want to change things? Does he even care? Questions sting his throat and he wants to spit poison in Naruto’s face. His guards might kill him.

            He seethes hatred low and hard one day and it halts Naruto mid-story. The boy leaves and doesn’t come back for several days. When he finally does, his chakra is controlled but angry, boiling under scorching skin. He feels several inches closer but Sasuke knows the bars are still there.

“I will change things.” Naruto promises to the darkness. Sasuke remains silent and lets the words hang heavily like lead.

\--

           The pardon goes through and he’s released without pomp or circumstance. He is a pariah now, tucked in an apartment overlooking the ruins of his childhood home. He thinks he will rebuild when the word stops tasting like bile. For now, he rolls it around his tongue.

            Sakura urges him toward normalcy, bring gifts and food for his decrepit place. Her hair is smooth and her skirt is short. It only stirs guilt in his gut. He hopes desperately she doesn’t love him anymore.

His tenth day of brooding she visits him again. She brings groceries this time and her hair is tied high on her head. Her dress tickles her ankles.

She cocks a hip and frowns, “Sasuke, you need to get out of here. Vitamin D is good for you, you know.”

Sasuke says nothing and bands another arm over his eyes as she rips open the curtains. Dust tickles her nose and she scoffs.

“Honestly, just do _something_.” She hesitates. “I hear Naruto’s looking for a sparring partner.”

            That piques his attention immediately. He sits up slowly and lets his eyes adjust to the light. He meets startling green, concern and grief and love buried deep in the irises. He thinks he could love her in another time – one unburdened by death and destruction. Instead he cuts the connection and pushes himself off the couch. He stops by the door.

“Coming Sakura?” He asks and he hears her sharp intake of breath. It sounds similar to the one she took when he was inches from her chest. When she was inches from death.

This, however, is a breath of life. A new beginning of a broken bond.

She reaches out with a watery chuckle, “If only to make sure you idiots don’t kill each other.”

\--

            She doesn’t stay for long. She is summoned to the hospital and leaves them to fight in the sunset. A hot breeze presses sweat to skin and he struggles to catch his breath. Fighting without his arm is harder than he originally believed. But he will adapt. A shinobi’s life is, after all, full of acclimations. Necessary unless you want to be dead.

            He bends backwards to avoid a punch and grabs the white arm, throwing Naruto to the ground. The flesh gives a little under his fingers and he thinks, for one earth-shattering moment, of a battlefield of alabaster monsters. His stump flares in pain and he is glad he didn’t accept the cells. What was once penance now feels like paradise.

            He straddles Naruto and rips the kunai from slackened fingers with his teeth, pointing it to his jugular vein. He relishes the aftertaste of a good fight, blood and salt strong on his palate. Sweat drips from his bangs and onto Naruto’s tanned skin, a thin stream down his bared chest and into his pants. He meets vibrant blue and smirks around the knife.

“Still can’t beat me, dead last?” He says, barely understandable. Naruto, however, sees the cockiness in his eyes.

He struggles but Sasuke’s arm bands across his chest, “Get off me, teme!”

“Concede.”

“Never.”

            They wrestle for what seems like ages and for a moment they are twelve again. They taste dirt and laughter. Sasuke decides he rather likes the sound of Naruto’s happiness. His spikes siphon gold from the day. He tightens his thighs around Naruto’s to gain leverage and feels a flame licking in his belly. Friction builds and builds. Naruto’s breath hitches.

            He meets Sasuke’s smoldering onyx, Rinnegan rippling like waves through his sapphire blue. Sasuke gives a deliberate roll of his hips and Naruto’s eyes roll back. They stare at each other, inhaling thick charged air.

“…Sasuke?” Naruto asks and it’s a plea and question all rolled into one long husky syllable. He swallows ages of history and shakes his head. Naruto presses his lips together and looks away.

\--

(They fight a couple times after that, never letting themselves get too close.

He tells Naruto he is leaving and doesn’t come back to the training grounds again.)

\--

           The night before his journey, sleep evades him. He’s tired in a way no simple darkness can solve. It seeps into his blood, aches in his arm. He sinks into the sheets and lets silence howl through an empty chest.

            The moon is high in the sky when he hears the knock. He feels his guest before he sees him, an unsteady lick of chakra that stirs heat in his abdomen. He opens the door with a blank expression and meets Naruto’s bleary eyes. He is braced on the door frame, hunched over as if he were going to collapse. A flush scores high across his cheeks.

            “Usuratonkachi?” Sasuke asks quietly and the familiarity cuts a little too close to an open wound. Naruto reels slightly as if pained and glares up, anger temped by intoxication.

“I…don’t want you to go.” He slurs. Sasuke expected such, but his admission still prickles pleasantly on his scalp.

“Doesn’t matter. Some things are bigger than you.” He deadpans. _Than us._

Naruto fists his shirt suddenly and their noses almost touch. A growl escapes Naruto, “Tell me what can be bigger than…”

            He stops and lets his gaze drop to Sasuke’s lips. Sasuke hears him swallow, watches his Adam’s apple bob. He knows what he’s going to say. What is bigger than the universe? After all, the sun and moon are the biggest things in the sky.

            Naruto keels over and Sasuke catches him before he falls.

\--

(He knows this to be false of course. There are planets bigger and galaxies vaster. They are merely a pin prick on the edge of time. But those places are far away. Eons if measured from Konoha.

He never did learn a better way to measure distance.

 

The sun, he learns, steals the covers and mumbles and is so damn _hot_. He was well aware of these facts – he was a part of a team before he sought bloodier pastures—but to have them re-cemented in his mind has his Sharingan spinning.

He feels like he’s going to combust. An explosion winding tight in his core. He thinks maybe this is why the sun and moon are never in the same sky. He should leave, turn is back before he goes blind—

He falls into a dreamless slumber.)

\--

            He awakens before dawn. A fitting resurrection, to be stirred from peace by the sun’s glare. For once it does not bother him. After all, he does have errands to run before he leaves. Besides, the day brings its own tranquility. Sasuke traces Naruto’s whiskers. He does not know tenderness, fingers rough and calloused from war, but he believes he can learn. Sharingan can be useful for something.

            Sasuke rests a glass of water and painkillers by Naruto’s head. He thinks he should leave a note but he finds, after all this time, he still has nothing to say.

\--

            He departs without flare. Kakashi provides a curt nod and an outline of his mission. Sakura walks with him to the gate, arm’s width apart and a couple inches behind. Some villagers stare but most pay him no heed. Like his ancestors, he is a ghost escaping his prison.

            To his surprise, Naruto is there, haggard but alert. He leans against a tree right outside the gate, frown etched on his face. He seems to be considering something, shuffling between his feet. Literally weighing his options.

            Sakura says nothing, but her eyes speak her truths. Guilt resurfaces but Sasuke swallows at the last second, taking her bento with only a small nod.

            When he passes by Naruto, he feels the other’s chakra spike, a slow heat seeping from his pores. However, he meets a calm ocean stare, a hurricane lurking in the horizon. Naruto stops his shuffling and smirks slightly. He pulls out Sasuke’s headband and holds it out, letting the promise rustle through the trees.

            Sasuke takes it and inhales a new breath.

 

\--

            He is a day away from Konoha when he finally looks up. Night has fallen but brightness radiates from the trees. Naruto is standing on a branch, pack slung over one shoulder as he stares down Sasuke. He grins and drops from his perch.

“Room for one more?” He asks.

            Sasuke doesn't answer. He grips Naruto’s shirt and Naruto flinches as if expecting a punch—

            It is a messy imitation of a kiss, with the rough drag of chapped lips and painful knock of teeth, but they taste home on each other’s tongues.

\--

The sun, Sasuke admits, is too goddamn _bright_ and _hot_ and _annoying_ and—

He gazes up and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> And they leave Konoha together to save the world. Maybe Sakura links up later. Who knows?  
> One of my favorite metaphors for these two is the sun and moon metaphor. Someone probably wrote it better but eh. I hope this is adequate.  
> Oh and if you think this trip was nothing but fluffy feelings and getting together then you really don't know me *grins*. Kinda have a multi-chapter worldbuilding-esque fic idea about them coming back and fighting a new enemy and actually getting together in a healthy relationship but I'm not sure if I'll write it. Regardless, I won't post it until I have it mostly complete.  
> Or I'll just write for BNHA and Haikyuu for the rest of my life. We shall see.


End file.
